


The Spirits Abide

by Missy



Category: How I Met Your Mother, Psych
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Humor, Jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 13:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4480763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Due to a snowstorm Shawn and Gus end up staying with Barney and Robin after Robin interviews Shawn.  Barney ends up being a huge fan of his.  Perhaps far too huge, to Robin's anger and jealousy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spirits Abide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [foxtwin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxtwin/gifts).



> This fic takes place just before "Deez Nups" in Psychverse and is post-canon for HIMYM.

_Kids, in the winter of 2015 everything was changing for every single one of us. Your aunt Robin was settling into married life with your Uncle Barney, I was dating your mother, Aunt Lily and Uncle Marshall were in Italy and the world economy collapsed because a rare breed of fire locusts ate over half of the country’s wheat crop._

_Your Uncle Marshall had something to do with that, but that's another story – don't worry, I’ll get back to it._

_Anyway, times were tough. Uncle Marshall and Lily AND their kids all had to cut their trip to Italy short and move back to New York, your mother and I had to learn how to economize right in the middle of repairing our dream home and your Aunt Robin found out that she'd agreed to let a psychic move into her guest bedroom for the winter._

_That’s a long story. Maybe I should start from the beginning..._

 

 

&&&&&&&&&

 

 

Robin Scherbatsky glanced at her watch for the hundredth time as she waited for the subject of her interview to arrive. She had no idea why she’d agreed to do it in the first place; everything she'd learned pointed toward her subject being something of a lucky flake. The odds that he'd been telling the truth for the past seven years seemed very low. The story held all of the sensationalized tabloid garbage effects she had been trying to avoid – an obsessed stalker, a cat and mouse game, a final lurid showdown featuring a daughter killing her father. But when she told Barney about the assignment his eyes lit up.

“THE Shawn Spencer?” his eyes lit up. “Say yes. I don’t care what they offer you or if they make you do it in a dumpster you HAVE to say yes!”

“Barney, who is this guy?” she wondered, left clueless from the mini-mountain of clippings research had sent her.

“Only the most famous psychic in California. He stops crimes with his MIND, Robin, and he has the hair of a pre-toupee Ted Danson!”

Robin groaned. She had a terrible feeling she’d come to regret saying yes. All but ready to give up, she was surprised when two men simultaneously entered the studio, talking loudly and animatedly to one another, oblivious to the crewmembers buzzing about doing their jobs. The first man was immediately derailed by the catering spread; the second headed straight for make-up and started talking about his ‘angles’. 

Robin’s gaze sharpened as she took the man’s features in. Her target was wearing twelve pounds of moisturizer and a head of hair that a gameshow host would envy. He seemed to be precisely the person the clippings had warned her about.

She was _so_ ready to tear him a new one...

 

 

&&&&&&&&&

 

 

“….And that, Ms. Sherbatsky-Stinson, is how I saved California from the scourge of the Yin/Yang killer,” said Shawn Spencer with dramatic relish. 

As he finished the story, Robin had to collect herself; it was, after all, a pretty hard to believe yet riveting tale. Between the long-lost friend, the dangerous hostage situations, the realized romantic ambitions and the rather dizzying number of laws broken all within a number of months, it felt dramatic enough to have been crafted by a Hollywood script doctor. “Well, Mister Spencer…that’s certainly a whale of a tale.” She laughed. “But tell me: how has cracking the case affected your loved ones?”

“Well, my best friend Gus has developed an even stronger taste for justice.” Steve swung camera B around to capture Gus as he stood at craft services sucking down a hoagie dripping with horseradish and roast beef. Mouth full, Gus managed an awkward wave and splattered the lens with cold cuts. “My friend Juliet is now my girlfriend Juliet – she’s a ball of sunshine who’s in line for a promotion thanks to her work on the case. Lassie is still an Old Bay Seasoned crab of a guy but he’s doing okay – getting married next week – don’t tell anybody, but I think he actually likes me. And my dad still thinks I need to move my Darth Vader figures out of the basement.”

“Well, I’m sure your work on this case will win you more followers.”

“That’s right,” said Shawn. “And if you need me to slather my hot, buttery abilities all over your problems, feel free to give us a call! Psych! We’re in the phone book between Pterry’s Psoriasis Hut and Pseu Pseu Psuedio’s Hair Salon.”

They held their frozen smiles for a few minutes before the house lights dimmed, the camera going dark. “And we’re clear,” he floor director said. Robin released a hostage breath and stood away from her chair, offering a hand to Shawn. She didn’t see Barney coming until he was nearly on top of both of them.

“Shawn!” said Barney enthusiastically. “I’m Barney Stinson – big fan of the art of the psychic. You know what they say - it's like magic minus bunnies. I hope my lady here was good to you.”

“Your lady?”

“Work with me,” Barney begged Robin, and she slung a friendly yet threatening arm around his shoulder. “My incredibly strong, smart, independent and awesome wife, Robin, knows what a huge fan I am and how I want you to use your psychic power to help me pick out the ultimate suit!”

“Well, I for one am always happy to meet a fan,” Shawn said. “I’m afraid the spirits can’t help you with the suit problem.” Shawn raised a hand to his temple, closed his eyes tightly. “They said ties are lame leashes invented by society to keep people in obedient lockstep.”

“How do the spirits feel about free dinners?” asked Barney.

“They approve of them wholeheartedly,” said Shawn.

“I know this great little out of the way bar,” Barney said, throwing an arm around Shawn’s shoulder. “It’s called Maclaren…” 

Robin rolled her eyes. She’d be stuck switching into her street clothes and wiping off pancake makeup for the next twenty minutes but she doubted Barney would mind entertaining Shawn for a short length of time. On her way out she collected Gus, who’d managed to make himself a triple-sized sundae as he waited to leave.

 

 

&&&&&&&&&

 

 

Ten minutes later they were at McLarens, just beating the first of several snow flurries of the week to the door. The conversation soon turned to Shawn’s connections. “,,,And then, you’ll never believe it…Kurt Smith was in the pool!”

Barney’s jaw dropped. “Kurt Smith, lead singer of Tears for Fears? THAT Kurt Smith?!”

“I met him at a party once,” Robin said. “He puked up onion dip into my favorite hat.”

“That’s nice sweetie,” said Barney. “But then what did he say?” he asked Shawn.

“Well,” said Shawn, “that’s something I’m going to have to keep close to the ol' vest. But let’s just say I met a wonderful man with a no-nonsense attitude and a powerful, clean haircut who helped me and Mister Smith come to an understanding.”

“We were sued for property damage,” said Gus, “the handsome, powerful guy was a lawyer!”

“ **I've** met lawyers!” Barney said. Shawn’s cell phone rang, distracting him, and Robin grabbed Barney by the tie and forced him to meet her eyes. “If you don’t stop ignoring me I’m going to burn everything you own.”

“Ignoring? Who’s ignoring? I’m letting Shawn bask in your beauty!”

“STOP TALKING ABOUT SHAWN!” she growled. 

“Bad news, everybody,” said Shawn. “No, switch that – extremely good news. It seems our flight’s been cancelled and we’re going to have to spend the evening in New York!”

“How would you like to stay in a top-flight penthouse?” Barney asked immediately.

Shawn shrugged. “If you have complimentary pillow mints, that’s a definite yes.”

 

 

&&&&&&&&&

 

 

_Your Aunt Robin soon learned that Shawn had an appreciation for terrible TV shows, low-quality snack foods and high thread count egyptian towels, which he liked throw all over the bathroom and fill with hanks of hair gel. Soon they got used to the good life, and Uncle Barney got used to having friends who appreciated the good life even more than he did. Shawn and Gus’ flight was delayed again, and again...and again. One week stretched into two, the snow outside got heavier, and finally your Aunt Robin snapped…._

"No Ted, I don't think you should go with Sandy Dawn," Robin said into her cell phone. "Not even if it's cheaper. Because you're going to be looking at those walls for the rest of your life." Robin paused and threw a disdainful glance at the poker game, "and if you don't like what you see then you're damn well going to have to cope with it. Bye."

"Who's this Ted chap?" asked Shawn. "He seems to know his way around a paintbrush.

"Robin hasn't introduced you to Ted?" Barney gasped. "Our dearest friend in the whole world and he's just an ugly paint swatch to you." 

"I've been busy," said Robin, teeth in a grit. “Don’t you think it’s time for you both to go to bed?” she asked.

Fortunately, Shawn seemed to notice something was wrong with Robin. Why it was almost as if she was ready to throttle him within an inch of his life! “I’m having a psychic vision!” he said, standing up and placing his index fingers to his temples. “I sense that you want Gus and I to leave you and Barney alone for a little while.”

“But I have three marshmallows left,” Gus complained, holding up his bag.

“Those are clearly toilet marshmallows,” declared Shawn, dragging his friend away to the bathroom.

Now Barney and Robin were face to face, and she was clearly anything but happy. “Robin, I know I’ve been ignoring you…”

“You KNOW you’ve been ignoring me. You KNOW?” she echoed.

“...But I’ve actually been trying to learn something about the spirit world from Shawn for a reason,” Barney said. He held out his left hand and, with his right, suddenly opened his palm – nothing. While she was glaring, though, she felt something land with a soft ‘pap’ upon her head – reaching up, she felt an exact replica of the velvet boyfriend hat she’d lost when Kurt Smith had thrown up into it. 

“When you told that story I started looking for the hat. Six long EBay battles later I asked Shawn to make contact with the spirit world. He found a ghost that was there that night, and they led us to a hat that looked just like it.”

“…Are you sure he didn’t use Google?”

“It was a spirit hat,” yelled Gus from the bathroom. “I was there!”

Robin looked into Barney’s eyes, suppressed a soft laugh. “Thank you for listening to me.” 

“Thank you for being awesome.”

“And thank New York for fancy hotel mints,” Shawn said from behind the door.

_Later that day, Shawn taught your Aunt Lily how to use the spirits to pop popcorn using only her mind, but that’s a story for another time._


End file.
